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Final Fantasy XIII gets 39/40 rating from Famitsu magazine

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 05:41 AM PST

ff13_famitsu

The Famitsu [JP], Japan’s (and probably the world’s) most important video game magazine, awarded New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii with a perfect 40/40 rating just last month. It was only the 13th game to receive that score (4 editors giving 10 out of 10 points), and many people believed Final Fantasy XIII for PS3 would follow today. But that didn’t happen.

The most anticipated game for the PS3 “only” received a 39/40 rating from Famitsu, one point less than Final Fantasy XII for PS2 a couple of years ago. One slightly negative point the editors mention is the storyline, but I don’t think too many people will care.

ff13_akiba

FFXIII is due for release on PS3 3 in Japan on December 17, and in Europe and North America on March 9, 2010. I took the picture above yesterday in Akihabara in Tokyo. That game will sell a lot of PS3s in this country, that’s for sure.

Here’s a list of Famitsu ratings for all Final Fantasy games so far:

Final Fantasy I (NES): 9 / 9 / 9 / 8 – (35/40)
Final Fantasy II (NES,): 9 / 9 / 9 / 8 – (35/40)
Final Fantasy III (NES): 9 / 9 / 10 / 8 – (36/40)
Final Fantasy IV (SNES): 9 / 9 / 9 / 9 – (36/40)
Final Fantasy V (SNES): 9 / 8 / 9 / 8 – (34/40)
Final Fantasy VI (SNES): 9 / 8 / 10 / 10 – (37/40)
Final Fantasy VII (PS): 10 / 9 / 10 / 9 – (38/40)
Final Fantasy VIII (PS): 10 / 9 / 9 / 9 – (37/40)
Final Fantasy IX (PS): 10 / 10 / 9 / 9 – (38/40)
Final Fantasy X (PS2): 10 / 9 / 10 / 10 – (39/40)
Final Fantasy XI (PS2): 10 / 9 / 10 / 9 – (38/40)
Final Fantasy XII (PS2): 10 / 10 / 10 / 10 – (40/40)

The iPhone Finally Gets Live Video Streaming With Ustream Live Broadcaster

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 05:30 AM PST

Services like Ustream and Qik have long offered the promise of live streaming video from your mobile phone to the web — except if you had an iPhone. For those devices, that was only possible if you jailbroke your phone. Not anymore. The Ustream Live Broadcaster has just gone live in the App Store tonight and yes, it allows you to stream live video from the iPhone to the web. And yes, it even works over a 3G connection. And yes, it's awesome.


Buffalo announces world’s first USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 03:00 AM PST

buffalo_30_card

USB 3.0 is slowly advancing, and Japan-based computer accessory maker Buffalo emerges as the leading company in its space. After having announced the world’s first USB 3.0-powered Blu-ray burner just last month, they today unveiled the first ExpressCard adapter [JP] that’s based on USB 3.0. The IFC-EC2U3/UC works with Windows 7 and Vista (32bit and 34 bit). It’s also compatible to XP machines.

Buffalo explains that if your PC or digital camera has a USB 3.0 port, you’ll get 5Gbps as the top data transfer speed. If not, the ExpressCard/34 offers just 480Mbps. It features two USB 3.0 ports and is based off NEC’s USB 3.0 host controller.

buffalo_30_card_2

Buffalo will start offering the ExpressCard in Japan from the end of this month (price: $60). The company does sell their products internationally but hasn’t announced any plans for distribution of this specific one outside Japan yet.

Daily Crunch: Sushi to Go Edition

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 12:00 AM PST

Analysts think you’re going to want to buy a connected GPS in 5 years

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:00 PM PST

google_navigationAnalyst firm, Berg Insight, thinks that eighty-eight percent of all GPS units shipped in 2015 will have cellular connectivity. This seems like a blindingly obvious prediction to me.

My loathing of analyst firms isn’t exactly a secret. This is exactly why I think they serve no practical purpose. Berg Insight says that 5 years from now, most of the GPS devices will have cellular technology built into them for the purposes of downloading data on demand as you travel. Connected GPS units aren’t expected to hit big in 2010, but the growth will continue as people get used to live services that tell you how to avoid traffic problems and speed traps. Sales should peak at about 50 million units per year and then decline slowly after that.

Of course, in 2015 no one will remember this report, so it really doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong. I predict that they are wrong. I think the industry is going to move much faster than this analyst has predicted, due to technology like Google’s new navigation on the Android phone. How many GPS manufacturers are going to see that tech and realize that they’ve been out-googled and have to come up with a way to provide the same types of services in order to remain competitive.

Of course, all of this will be moot after December 2012 anyway, right?

HD Radio gets smaller, more popular

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 08:30 PM PST

hdradddGet ready, 2010 might just end up being the year of HD radio. Rumor is that we’re going to see something like eight new portable HD radio devices at CES this January.

Now, we saw some HD radio devices last year at CES too, but this time they think you’ll really REALLY like them. HD radio seems to have an awareness problem, honestly. The HD radio manufacturers want you to buy their devices this time, and the hope is that by targeting the Zune/iPod crowd by coming up with add-ons, you’ll bite. We should also start seeing some headphone based units as well, and some are even going to include HD AM as well.

You can get HD radio receivers currently in the Zune HD, from The Shack, and Best Buy even has their own headphone style unit already on the market.

Olympus E-P2 not just official, but for sale too

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 08:00 PM PST

e-p2So we told mere moments ago (in internet time) that Olympus had officially announced the leaked and rumored E-P2, the latest in their line of EVIL cameras. The good news: they’re not just announced, you can buy one online too!

Yep, if you’re ready to drop your $1099.99 on an E-P2, Amazon is ready to check you out. It’s actually being sold by J&R Music and Computer World, but they enjoy an excellent reputation in New York and are a pretty safe company to buy from.

Thanks to Ron for the tip!

Projector-packin’ LG Expo gets delayed

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 07:08 PM PST

If you were gettin' all antsy in the pantsies about yesterday's launch of the LG Expo and it's detachable projector accessory, you might be a bit bewildered right now. A full day later, AT&T's still showing no sign of the handset.


Redbox is making life very difficult for the movie industry

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 06:30 PM PST

redbox_kioskProving once again you can find a study to prove almost anything, a report came out today showing that Redbox will bring down the movie industry by continuing with their $1 a night business model. Sounds like some sour grapes to me.

And what is Redbox doing that is so heinous you ask? Well, according to the study, renting DVD’s for a buck is cannibalizing sales, making customers want other outlets to offer similar deals, and harming the “perceived value” of movies in general. As an example of this, Blockbuster recently started their own kiosk system to try and muscle in on Redbox.

On top of these crimes, Redbox is also making quite the killing in the aftermarket sales area. Of course, Redbox claims that what they are doing it’s that bad, and they contest some of the data that the study collected.

[Via NewTeeVee]

Home-built Kodachrome machine – that’s some serious DIY

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 05:40 PM PST

filmy
Film lovers may be finding it hard to get their hands on their favorite brand of film. Film dealerships are getting fewer and fewer, and many types of film currently being manufactured aren’t compatible with old cameras. What’s a guy to do when his favorite color stock is extinct forever? How about make his own?

Putting film together isn’t as simple as brushing a photosensitive layer onto some plastic. There’s a whole science to doing it right, to say nothing of the chemical recipes necessary. The layers are micrometers thin and… well, there’s no use getting into the nitty gritty. If you wanted to build your own film-making machine, you’d have your nose in this kind of stuff all day long anyway. More details at the Flickr page.

flim2

It is a sweet-looking rig though, isn’t it? I’d like to have one even if it didn’t make workable film.

New projector displays an image 65 feet wide

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 05:00 PM PST

projectiondesignf35Projectors have come a long way in the past couple of years, but they aren’t exactly suitable for replacing monitors. What they can do, however, is put images on almost any surface — and there are a select few like the Projectiondesign F35 that can create truly enormous displays.

The F35 projects at an astounding 2560×1600, the first projector to produce that level of resolution. This is important because it’s the same resolution as larger LCD monitors, which up to this point have been the only devices capable of displaying at that level of detail.

The F35 reportedly supports 720p and 1080i, and will accept input from DVI-D, dual HDMI 1.3, dual VGA, and component. No word on exactly how much this thing is going to set you back, but I have no doubt it’ll be a small fortune.

Reaping what they sow: Canadian record industry faces potential $6 billion fine for copyright infringement

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 04:00 PM PST

irony
Oh dear, oh dear. How utterly delightful! It seems that the major members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association have been a bit hypocritical over the last… oh, 20 years. It seems they’ve included a truly enormous amount of tracks on compilation CDs without paying the artists a dime, instead putting them on a “pending list.” This list is somewhere around 300,000 items long, and a class-action lawsuit is underway in which the plaintiffs are calling for (and this is the best part) the same statutory damages the recording industry has pursued with individuals: $20,000 per song. Ironisterical!

That’s $6 billion in damages if the industry plays by its own rules (or more), and so far they’ve admitted that they do in fact owe $50 million. It’s not quite an admission of guilt, but let’s say that during a rash of candy store robberies, you admitted to robbing half. You better believe the other half will be on the judge’s mind as he raises that gavel.

Actually, to be honest, I don’t expect the $6bn figure to fly, given that this is not only a different court but a different country from that where the RIAA’s ridiculous damages were awarded. Even if they end up owing “only” fifty mil, I’ll be happy to see them pay it.

The suit is in Canada, and has to do with Canadian royalties law, but I guarantee there are people scouring the RIAA’s records right now looking for a willful oversight like this. Oh man, I would die laughing if the RIAA went under on piracy charges.

[Correction: $6bn not $60bn. Still.]

CrunchGear in China: Getting From There to Here

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 04:00 PM PST

Shenzhen City Hall

Shenzhen City Hall


For a long time my concept of sourcing – basically order fulfillment – was all wrong. When I ordered a USB charger or headphones for my phone or MP3 player, I thought some little old lady in Texas headed over to a warehouse, put the item in a box, gummed on a few stamps, and sent the item posthaste. I’m sure there was a computer in there somewhere, but it was a pure transaction – item, box, mail truck, my door. Little did I know that everything in the world came out of a one-square mile gated complex in Shenzhen, China.

The area is called the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and it’s an ultra-dense supernova of commerce. Items sold from the zone are shipped out through customs officials and you can’t take a laptop or a phone in or out without proper paperwork. It is a capitalistic game preserve designed to allow ostensibly Communist China to enable ostensibly capitalistic suppliers to do business with the world while taking advantage of China’s low wages and vast populace.

laverneCompared to the other factory I saw, this area looks more like Switzerland than China. Aside from the smoky pall covering the hills surrounding the park and the gray functionaries behind the customs desk in the building I was in, you could be anywhere. I was led up to a modern Western office with Chinese English-speakers manning the doors. A female guard saluted us as we passed. She can’t have been more than twenty, and her uniform was baggy on her small frame. This was a secure area. Nothing left or came in without authorization. There is no such thing as pilferage here.

A word on these factories. Most of the factories are built in similar economic zones and they provide everything for their workers. There are canteens, dorms, and education centers (although English isn’t usually on the menu). One factory, Foxconn, has an estimated 350,000 employees in its Shenzhen campus. To put this into perspective, one of the largest state schools I know, Ohio State, has 60,347 students. Microsoft has about 93,000 employees.

Another metric: Foxconn’s Shenzhen campus kills 4,000 pigs a day for the cafeteria. That’s a lot of pork.

There was no way I was getting into the factories, but I saw the next best thing. When you order something online, say a USB adapter or set of headphones, or even a laptop – the factory makes it immediately. It’s like ordering a burger at McDonald’s. Sometimes it sits around but mostly there’s some underpaid dude who can slap it together in a minute or two. It’s that simple. It’s just in time manufacturing at its finest. Sure some of the stuff they make and store – other commodities, maybe, or smaller, popular items. But there is no expectation that your device exists today. Remember how Dell used to say they made your PC as soon as you ordered it? Well the assumption was that they sourced the parts and put it together. But in this case the device could have feasibly been plastic beads and solder a few minutes before your order.

The manufactured item ends up on a long table staffed by women who place it in the package and send it further down the line. It’s almost always women in these factories, except on some of the lines for larger items like TVs. They place the item in the pre-made box, put in a little instruction card, and send it down the line. The order then moves down to the sealing station. It is cheaper to hire women than to buy a sealing robot, so each and every item is sealed by hand. While this may be different in some factories, it is the Chinese norm. The sheer number of human hands involved in this process is staggering.

The item hits a box and then hits the shipping area. An item made in the morning can be winging its way to you that night and arrive the next day. Another factory I saw was able to source twenty prototype MP3 players for a major retailer in a day, and they arrived in time for a meeting two days later, custom box and all.

This is the new Chinese manufacturing. It is just-in-time, always running, and staffed by humans from stem to stern. Again, my experience is limited to a few factories within a small area but this jibes with explanations I’ve heard elsewhere.

Now the question is this: If these factories have thousands of people, why aren’t there leaks? And when they do occur, why do they happen? The answer to the first question is that the employees are fiercely loyal to their employer. It is amazingly difficult to lure an employee out of Foxconn to work in another job let along gather intelligence. Work is siloed and everything is kept separate. One factory may make the memory for a new laptop (or iTablet) and another factory will make the screen. The twain will only meet in the just-in-time shipping facility. For example, toy companies may manufacture in the same building but each individual factory is hidden behind a locked wooden door. The guys from Hasbro don’t talk to the Wowwee guys. It just doesn’t happen. To leak is to lose face and risk losing a contract.

So what is happening when things leak? It’s a pump and dump scheme. This happens all the time for news sources based in Taiwan and China. A company can make perhaps a 7 percent profit to manufacture an item for customer A. If that customer is big enough and important enough, however, they will often take a quick risk: they’ll leak the news that they’re making “screens for Apple” or “phones for Motorola” and get a 21 percent uptick in their stock price. The same goes for blurrycam photos of tech. There is no monetary, legal, or personal incentive for a low-ranking employee of these factories to leak the things they are building. They’re not reading blogs all day, nor are they likely to be aware that anyone gives a damn about whatever they’re working on, be it iTablet, Zune phone, or Playstation 4. To them it’s just another item on the assembly line.

The real value comes from the folks higher up with a few thousand shares of the company. We, the neophile gadget lovers, are essentially driving the pump and dump scams.

And so the cycle continues. We order something, it comes. We want to see new things, someone provides. Everything is just hours away.

Next: The Ex-pats
This article is part of a series about manufacturing in China. Read more parts here.

Giveaway: Gunnar Optiks MLG Legend Glasses

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 03:00 PM PST

07-1204Whether you’re sitting in front of your computer at work on a daily basis, or getting dominated by those damn Call of Duty campers for hours on end, chances are your eyes are taking quite the hit. Help your poor eyes out by reducing the strain they incur with Gunnar’s MLG Legend Glasses.

We reviewed these glasses for gamers, as well as for those who simply use a computer often, and we think they are great.

Tell us how many hours you spend in front of a screen on a daily basis and doing what, for a chance to win a pair of these glasses.

Gunnars are intended for those with 20/20 or corrected vision, so make sure you have this to win.

Assemble this font in 3D after printing it out

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 02:00 PM PST

punched_out
Now here’s a good idea. In a way, anyhow — when was the last time you really needed little 3D letters? Doesn’t matter, it’s still cool. This font, if you print it large enough, lets you cut out the letters, fold down and glue the tabs where indicated, and boom, papercraft letters!

I can see this being useful in a grade school environment, or for decorating a twee apartment. Who lives here? Clearly Zoe, since her name is hanging from the ceiling in foot-high letters.

punchout

The name of the font is “Punched Out” and it’s available for free from dafont.com, which looks like it’s got a lot more cool fonts. Time to browse.

[via Reddit]

Xbox 360: Not big in Japan

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 01:30 PM PST

xboxinjapan

Would it be foolish to begin this story with the words "poor Microsoft"? I mean, the company isn’t exactly hurting for money, and yet it looks like 2009 was the year that the Xbox 360 finally died in Japan. Not that the Xbox 360 ever really did well in Japan, but this year it looks like everything fell off a cliff.

Look at this chart. It shows the sales of the various game consoles this year. You’ll immediately notice that sales across all platforms are down this year, which makes sense: the people who wanted a Wii probably hve a Wii by now, etc. The best selling console was the Nintendo DS (no doubt helped by the release of Dragon Quest IX), followed by the Wii, PSP (?!), PS3, PS2 (?!), and, lastly, the Xbox 360.

That’s right: the nine-year-old PS2 has outsold the Xbox 360 in Japan in 2009.

I’m not sure how much Microsoft cares, or should care. There weren’t too many (any?) Japanese games released exclusively for the system this year, so it probably wasn’t expecting… well, not monster sales, but respectable sales.

And then when you figure in that the Xbox 360 is so obviously a system designed and executed with the North American market in mind, and that Japan has always been an afterthought for the system, then you see where I’m going with this.

Oh boy: World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 goes live today

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 01:00 PM PST

threepointthree

Tuesdays usually stink for World of Warcraft. The servers go down early in the morning for maintenance, and then stay down well after the scheduled time more often than you’d care to see. Today doesn’t stink, since Patch 3.3 is indeed dropping. I cannot wait to leave the terribly fancy TC/CG office, get home, fire up the game, then PUG till the sun comes up.

So yeah, the downtime today is because Blizzard is preparing the servers for Patch 3.3, the last content patch for the game’s latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. That means we’ll be seeing more and more Cataclysm news and speculation from here on out. (I think I’ll be rolling a Worgen Rogue or Druid, not sure yet.)

The highlights of Patch 3.3 are as follows:

• Icecrown Citadel instance— take that, Lich King!

• Three more five-man instances

• Cross-server Looking For Group (which means when you PUG you’ll be paired off with people from servers other than your own, which should make PUGing approximately 3 million times better, especially for lower level characters)

And other stuff.

SO yeah, it’s a pretty big deal. I’m excited; it’s going to be a late night!


Wal-Mart starts video game price war, cuts prices of games by $10

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 12:30 PM PST

flairwalmart

It’s so, so easy to hate on Wal-Mart, what with destroying this country’s mom and pop culture, importing cheap junk from China, and freaking out whenever employees mention the word "union." But if you’re a gamer, you really ought to cast aside your prejudices, brave the crowds, and find the games you’ve always wanted for a good $10 less than what you’ll find elsewhere. That’s right: we’re having ourselves a good old fashioned price war.

Wal-Mart has taken it upon itself to sell video games this holiday season (not sure if it’s a permanent thing or not) for $10 less than you’ll find at GameStop, Best Buy, Amazon, etc. Sixty dollar games become $50, $50 games become $40, and so on.

I don’t know if there’s any $40 games any more.

And credit to PC World for using the word "rubbish," which is right up there with my favorite words this years, in describing the games you won’t find. You will find Halo: ODST for $10 less, but you won’t find Barbie Goes to Hollywood and Gets Mixed Up With the Wrong Crowd.

How have the likes of GameStop responded? Oh, by seeing the value of their stock go way down. GameStop stock tumbled 8.26 percent after word got out that Wal-Mart was meaning to eliminate the so-called "next-generation tax."

In conclusion, if you’re so viciously anti-Wal-Mart that you won’t shop there for any reason whatsoever, then it may make sense to do your video game shopping there.

And if Wal-Mart is good enough for Ric Flair, then it’s good enough for me.


New device coming from Syabas, the makers of Popcorn Hour, at CES ‘10

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 12:13 PM PST

syabapgaPopcorn Hour is a great product and loved by many nerds. But that’s just it, the device is somewhat nerdy. Apparently the maker, Syabas, has another Internet-connected device coming and it will be shown off at CES 2010. While certain key points are missing right now like the price, availability, and hardware specs, what little info I do have makes this box sound promising indeed.

  • Works with Netflix, Crunchyroll, MLB & more
  • Local network media metadata provided by IMDb and All Music Guide
  • New UI
  • Open application development platform
  • Facebook and Twitter access
  • 3rd party game and application support

So far everything is right on the money for a next-gen living room device. I just hope that the price is reasonable, the video codec support is extensive, and the remote has a QWERTY keypad on it. More info should be available at CES in a few weeks.

Who wants this Seagate T-Shirt?

Posted: 08 Dec 2009 11:40 AM PST

seagate

UPS just dropped off this beauty courtesy of Seagate and I think its owner should be someone that will actually wear it. That’s not me. So who wants it? Anyone? It’s an XL.

I’m not going to drag this out. It’s just a damn T-shirt. You have until 5:00 p.m. EST today to leave a comment begging me for this wonderful shirt. I will pick one at random and announce the winner this evening. Have at it, nerds.

Winner: Dan. Congrats. Check your inbox for my email.
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